The Longest Fall
Introduction: It was the best of times; it was the worst of times…
Vise Dyne sat in his chair, his fingers slowly tracing the new pink flesh on his left cheek. Old scar tissue had been removed, leaving him with new, healthy skin where it had once been. Gone were the days of the air pirates, and gone were the days of scars showing strength and symbolism. His had to be removed; for fear that it would make the many voters in Valua tilt in favor of opposing candidates.
It is all, Vise thought in disgust, politics these days. Gone are the times when life was to stay alive as long as you could. Gone are the days when an enemy fired a cannon at you.
Nowadays it was simply politics. He could no longer do as he pleased, and when he tried to help the people, he was opposed.
Ever since being named Emperor of Valua after his close friend Enrique had been killed by an activist of the older days of Valua, Vise now had to fight the people he was meant to serve. They demanded better healthcare and protection in one breath, and with that same breath demanded that their taxes remain low, or else he was a tyrant. And he had better not go dipping into the treasury for these sorts of things! That was for future Emperors after he stepped down. It wasn't his place to draw from that.
Sighing at the constant problems of his month-old rule, Vise stood up from the overly garnished throne he sat on and ran his fingers through the recently clipped brown hair he wore, feeling the strange sensation, as his hand never touched the glass eye patch he had once worn; didn't contact his hair until two and a half inches after they should have.
Life was different, now. He was in a position of power he had never wanted, ruling now not just Valua, but also all of Arcadia, now. In a sense.
Valua, being home to the greatest engineers and workers of raw metals was the chief provider of ships for this New World. People needed food to survive, and fish was the main source of that food. So now Valua's massive shipyards that had once produced war machines to annihilate all who opposed them.
Now those same shipyards were being used to feed the world, a major export, and a huge source of income with the giant converted warships that now captured literally thousands of fish a day.
It was a brighter future, but one Vise knew could not last. At the rate the fish were harvested, there wouldn't be any left in another three years. And Vise wouldn't remain in charge for much longer. Much less alive, if he followed in Enrique's footsteps. The man had been born into royalty, and knew his politics fully. People were happier under his rule, and fewer arguments of a greater magnitude had a broken out. And yet extremists had killed him.
They had taken a man whom Vise had seen do nothing but good, and killed him after a few short months in office, because he was not their lord Galcien who had perished. Because he was not the dead Lord Ramirez. Because he was a traitor to all of Valua in their eyes. Their actions hadn't been thought through properly, and had ended up sending the nation that they so loved into several months of Civil unrest as the people of it fought over a new leader, leaving those still in the under works to starve to death.
Vise shook his head hard, sending his reflections aside. No, this world could not last, but perhaps people would listen to him eventually. A gauntleted hand tapped him on the shoulder, and he spun around in surprise, a sloppy, but-not-quite-forgotten fighting stance coming to his limbs.
"Sir," the soldier said, by now getting rather used to his new leader's sudden reactions. In the days of Galcien and Ramirez when he had served, being a messenger was one of the more dangerous jobs out there. You came in bearing a letter or some tidbit of information, and preyed that they found it acceptable, or even pleasing. Because with the might of Valua behind the lords, they needn't worry about killing the messenger.
Nowadays was different. With the rains of destruction having poured down on Valua, hundreds, if not thousands had been lost to the torrential meteors. People couldn't afford to be killed, and the latter two rulers of Valua had never been known for unnecessary violence anyway.
"Sorry," Vise said, lowering his limbs from their fighting stance and blushing slightly. "What is it, Herand?" he asked the soldier, recognizing the dark widow's peak on his forehead, the sunken in black eyes in his skull, and the slightly crooked nose that had been caused by an air pirate encounter with blue rogues, nonetheless.
Having done away with the old pointed masks that had been worn by Valuan militia had been an improvement, and just about everyone in the party agreed. The basic armor had been kept the same, the usual full-body gray suit of metal. On the face were now worn slightly less effective, but largely improved clear riot shields, held in place by a black elastic band. It increased the visibility that the predecessors of the helmet had blocked, and allowed for the soldiers to remove the masks when they weren't needed, keeping them from becoming over-heated as quickly in the metal.
Herand snapped his arm up in a crisp salute, his dark eyes focused straight ahead as he waited for his leader to return the salute. Vise sighed, and did so. "This is probably the eighth time I've told you you don't need to salute me when you come in these chambers. I'm not the egocentric leader you used to have."
"Yes sir," Herand said, keeping his posture ridged
"Now then, what is it?" Vise repeated, starting to grow more than a little impatient.
"First Grand Admiral Aika reports that the Yafutoman confederation is here to discuss the sky fishing being performed under the blue moon, and to request that it be stopped. First Admiral Aika would like to know if she should let them land or blow them out of the sky."
Vise smiled. That certainly sounded like the air pirate he had grown up with, constantly annoyed by pushier upper-class citizens.
"Tell her to let them land, but not with more than one or two support ships. We don't want to make the mistake made by Enrique, now do we?"
The soldier winced at the mention, having been present when the falsified ship "Errant Venture" had been supposedly returning from a trip to Nassar. It had been loaded with eight assassins who had been capable of defeating the lord of Valua despite Herand's best efforts, an his success in killing one of them before a blast knocked him out of the fight.
"Oh, yes," Vise said, adding another detail, smiling grimly. "Tell her to make sure the guns on the wall are armed.
Herand nodded, heading down the hall. "Yes, sir." It was a perfect world that they lived in, and yet a terrible one. It was an age of prosperity that they knew would lead to one of despair. It was like Esperanza, the city of hope. A forgotten shell of rust and bones, with an oxymoronic name.
It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. It was the age of happiness; it was the age of despair- A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens.
A/n Here's hoping you all liked that. I'm new to fan fiction, and will be atrocious in my habits of sending this stuff in, as well as spelling of the character's names. Oh, and even though you already knew it, I have no hold to SOA or Sega or anything. Honest. I don't even own the game or a dream cast. Heck, I haven't even seen how the game ends.